It was grade school when they first met, on a basketball court somewhere between Alabama and Kentucky.

There were so many games back then, so many tournaments, that neither remembers the exact moment they went from being AAU rivals to friends, just that they did.

Kerryon Johnson was an aspiring football star at the time, biding his days on the basketball court, waiting for his real love to get back in season. He played for his father’s AAU team, Vigilance Sports, and was always one of the best players on the floor, a big point guard who was too quick for most anyone to handle one-on-one.

Josh Langford played for “some purple team” then, one of a handful of clubs he suited up for through the years, and every time he took the court he did something to catch Johnson’s eye.

One day, the two squared off at a sprawling sports complex with ugly, multi-colored floor somewhere in SEC country, dueling teams from neighboring towns in Alabama, when it dawned on Johnson just what was happening.

“He killed us,” Johnson said. “He gave us like 30, 40, luckily he fouled out. I still remember that day, and ... that was the first time I realized I keep playing against this same dude over and over.”

Johnson was friends with Langford’s cousin, another aspiring football star, current Auburn running back Malik Miller, and eventually the three became close. Langford transferred to Madison Academy, a K-12 school about 25 minutes from his home, where as a middle-schooler he joined Johnson and Miller on the football and basketball teams.

Josh Langford ,1, of MSU takes the ball to the basket through a crowd of Minnesota defenders.(Photo: Kevin W. Fowler / for the Lansing State Journal)

Eventually, Johnson gave up basketball (“I never loved it,” he said), and Langford gave up football (“I played quarterback and I actually was pretty good”), but not before the two, a grade apart when Langford was held back upon transferring, gave each other a nudge to get where they are today.

Johnson, coming off an impressive preseason, will play his first NFL game next Monday night when the Detroit Lions host the New York Jets at Ford Field. Langford returns as the starting shooting guard on a Michigan State basketball team that’s once again expected to contend for the Big Ten title.

“I remember one particular practice, I want to say either it was my freshman year or my eighth-grade year because I played varsity my eighth-grade year as well in basketball. But there was one practice where we had to do this full-court one-on-one drill, and Kerryon was kind of like, I mean he’s a physical guy,” Langford recalled. “So Kerryon was being real physical with me and I kind of got upset, and my coach is like, ‘Why don’t you just go as hard as he’s going against you?’

“I remember that particular practice. Kerryon probably don’t remember it, but I do because he was fouling me so hard and I was getting so frustrated and I was like, ‘You know what, since he’s bringing the intensity towards me I’m going to bring it back.’ And I can just remember, after that day, that particular day really helped me and just growing into a different mindset of how intense I have to be on the court.”

'Special' player

Intensity has never been a problem for Johnson, who led Madison Academy to three straight state championships in football and one in basketball (with Langford by his side) before becoming SEC Offensive Player of the Year at Auburn.

Eric Cohu, Johnson’s football coach at Madison, said Johnson was one of the most competitive players he has ever coached.

“Everybody wants to make plays at the high-school level, everybody wants the stats, everybody wants to go to the next level, but our competitive nature in society is not the same,” said Cohu, now the coach at Little Rock (Ark.) Christian Academy. “Well, he’s a throwback. I mean, he does whatever it takes to win that game and I’m kind of shocked that as I talk to scouts and NFL coaches and even when he was being recruited collegiately how really coaches miss that, I think. Because that puts him in like 1 percent of the current players in our society. It’s just a different mindset. If we’re playing checkers that guy’s going to have to win.”

In high school, Johnson’s competitive nature was on display in some of Madison’s biggest games. When he hurt his shoulder so bad as a junior that it would later require surgery, he spent two playoff games playing wide receiver as a decoy just to draw double-teams. A year later, as Alabama’s Mr. Football, he set a state record by scoring six touchdowns (including one on defense) in the championship game.

Johnson shined in his first preseason game, rushing for 34 yards on seven carries (with another 62 yards called back on penalty) and catching four passes for 33 yards, before the Lions scaled back his playing time over the final three weeks, presumably to keep him ready for Week 1.

Through it all, he has impressed his coaches and teammates, with veteran running back LeGarrette Blount calling Johnson “special” and predicting “he’s going to be a really good player.”

“Obviously, he’s a big playmaker,” Blount said. “We’ve seen that throughout the preseason. Game in and game out, he consistently brings it. He comes to work every day, he grinds every day. I think that he’ll be a big part of the offense.”

The Lions have been coy about their plans for Johnson for this fall, but it’s clear they envision him being a big part of their revamped rushing attack.

Johnson already is the most complete back on the team, a capable, rusher, receiver and kick returner, and he has impressed coaches with his willingness and ability to block.

“In this league you’ve got to be able to do multiple things,” Johnson said. “The days of just one bellcow running downhill, the game’s too physical, the season’s too long. You’ve got to be able to do a multitude of things, and I don’t want to be out there and the defense be like, ‘Oh yeah, we can blitz now because this guy’s a bad pass protector.’ So you got to be able to do a multiple type things. It helps the quarterback, it helps the offense, which helps us win.”

Setting expectations

Langford was out to dinner with his father recently, when he looked up at the TV and saw Johnson and the Lions on the screen.

“I was like, ‘Wow, this guy is great in the NFL. He’s really doing it,’ ” Langford said. “It’s crazy because I just remember when he wasn’t in the NFL and we were just young kids.”

Running back Kerryon Johnson speaks to the media after the Detroit Lions training camp at their practice facility in Allen Park on Saturday, July 28, 2018.(Photo: Kimberly P. Mitchell, Detroit Free Press)

Back then, Johnson and Langford didn’t talk much about their professional dreams, but Langford said, “it was just something that was understood between me and him.”

“He never really talked about it, about going to the NFL,” Langford said. “But I just knew that even if he didn’t want to, he would just end up there accidentally just how good he is, just how talented he is.”

If this preseason has confirmed anything, it’s exactly that: Johnson, in 66 snaps, has proven that he belongs.

Now, the question is how quickly he can help transform the Lions’ league-worst rushing attack — they averaged a paltry 76.3 yards rushing per game last year — into a unit that commands respect from defenses across the league.

Johnson said he doesn’t set statistical goals, but history, perhaps, provides a baseline for expectations for him this fall.

From 2015-18, NFL teams traded up to get five running backs in the first three rounds of the draft: Melvin Gordon, Kareem Hunt, Dalvin Cook, Alvin Kamara and Johnson.

Johnson’s contemporaries averaged just 61 yards rushing per game as rookies, though they helped their teams in a variety of ways. Hunt led the NFL in rushing last season, Kamara is one of the top dual-threat backs in the league, Cook missed most of his rookie season with a torn ACL and Gordon waited a year until his big breakout.

Hunt, Kamara and Cook (though he played just four games) helped their teams reach the playoffs as rookies.

“I can’t really nail down for you exactly why (rookie running backs have had such a big impact of late),” Lions coach Matt Patricia said. “I think each team is different and the workload that those guys have (changes throughout the year). So we’re just trying to be consistent. I would say that’s the biggest thing. And same thing for Kerryon, it’s just going to be just a steady improvement.”

He said his biggest takeaway from the preseason, despite his impressive start, is that “I just learned that I got to keep working.”

“You’ve never really reached that point of, ‘Oh, I’m comfortable,’ or, ‘I’m good,’ ” he said. “There’s very good guys in this league. There’s very good guys that aren’t in this league, there’s very good guys who are going to be released, very good guys in free agency. Everybody’s so talented, you’ve got to stay on top of it, and the minute you don’t is the minute you get replaced, so you got to just keep going, keep your head down and work.”

That’s the approach he’s taken since the ball fields and basketball courts in Alabama, when he and Langford drove each other to be the best.

“I’m here now at my dream, working to achieve more,” Johnson said. “He’s getting to his soon enough, and like I said, there’s never been any bad blood, it’s always been I want to see him do best, he wants to see me do best and hopefully that’ll happen.”